Scent

Josephine awoke with the sun and felt renewed after what seemed to be an endless winter of diversions, distractions and depression. She stared out of her balcony to the garden below and knew that finally, spring had arrived. The thought filled her with a renewed love of life and her world.

She put on her silk robe, the green one Bertram had given her on the day of their engagement. She felt a brief pang of sadness at the memory of him, but it passed with the cool breeze blowing to her from the east. Had it only been four months since his departure? Only a quarter of a year since he left her alone? No matter, she thought to herself, there is life and light yet in the world and today, of all days, it seems to shine only for me.

She forewent returning indoors to reach the garden and instead climbed down the lattice near the balcony. The last time she had done so was in her youth, climbing down to meet Bertram and escape into the night and into the city to dance amidst the extraordinary lights and people she could scarcely believe existed outside of her tiny villa.

The roses were in bloom, and she could smell them from anywhere in the garden. Still, she wanted to be immersed in their scent. She approached the wall where they hung and took one of the flowers gently in her hand as she put her nose to it. It smelled like a rose, but also of passion and magic; of love and castles and insatiable sexual appetites. She closed her eyes; dulling one sense to enhance another and lost herself to the scent of the rose.

She stayed there for hours. She could still scarcely hear the hum of the mag-rail outside her walls, bustling with track-cars carrying their passengers to the metropolis not far from her house. The technological jungle spread far and the sound of electricity seemed to hum all around unto infinity. No matter, she thought again while sitting in her little green square surrounded by the vast gray metallic onslaught, here things grow. Here there is life.

When the sun faded into the horizon and the moon rose high in the sky she could look out from her little patch and see the stars burning in the sky from thousands of years ago. He's up there somewhere, she knew, finding a new sphere out in the nothing, where things can grow, too. She smiled big, even as the tears fell from her cheek, and she lay down on the grass and stare at the sky, looking for her love before drifting into a soundless, peaceful sleep.